News & analysis of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, by Matthew Stiegler

New opinion – housing-rights win for emotional-support-dog owners

The Fair Housing Act’s protection against housing discrimination covers a disabled person’s reasonable and necessary use of an emotional-support animal in one’s home despite a rule prohibiting one, the Third Circuit ruled today. The court reversed a district court grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendant condominium, holding that a plaintiff’s FHA claim survived her death under federal common law and that there was a factual dispute over whether the condominium refused to accommodate. The court also found a factual dispute over whether the defendants — including a neighbor who criticized the plaintiffs on his blog — interfered with the plaintiffs’ housing rights by harassing them after they complained.

The parties did not dispute, and the court did not decide, whether the plaintiffs were disabled or whether the accommodation they requested was reasonable. Suffice to say emotional-support animals are not universally beloved, as this scathing 2014 New Yorker article confirms.

Restrepo was joined by Fuentes and Vanaskie. Arguing counsel were Karin Bentz of St. Thomas for the plaintiffs; James Parker of Florida, Boyd Sprehn of Benham & Chan, and Kyle Waldner of St. Thomas for the defendants, and April Anderson for the government as amicus supporting the plaintiffs.

UPDATE: I’m mighty skeptical that private citizens should be subject to FHA liability for saying mean things online about emotional-support-animal-owning neighbors. I think it’s not unlikely that private citizens will say mean things about today’s opinion.